"Absolutely Insane. The State of Hawaii officials could’ve prevented this! But they did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING."
If you’ve been following BeachGrit’s real estate pages, you’ll be aware of the terrific bargains to be had at Sunset Beach, that “famously complex Hawaiian surf break located on the North Shore of Oahu; regarded by many as the center of the surfing universe from the 1950s to the ’80s.”
In 2020, you could’ve bought Freddy Pattachia’s sprawling beachfront compound there for a little over two mill, which had been saved by Freddy in 2013 when half of it fell into the drink.
Fred’s daddy, Fred Snr, told Hawaii News Now at the time, “We’ve asked for help and no help came … We were telling them that if we don’t get something soon we’re in dire straits. At 10:30, the pool fell. It collapsed … We lost our entire beachfront. It took a chunk out 100 feet wide by 50-feet deep. That’s close to 5,000 square feet.”
By 2020, howevs, the pool was gone, the front of the joint is shored up, and you could step straight into a front-row seat at the North Shore’s third best wave.
Now, Sunset is back in the news after it was revealed homeowner, Josh VanEmmerik, is being sued by the Hawaiian state government after his house did a Freddy and collapsed into the ocean.
VanEmmerik, a thirty-one-year-old bar owner from Kailua, bought the house three years back for a million bucks, glitzed it up, and re-listed it for two-and-a-half mill, although shortly before erosion ate it up the price had been dropped to two mill.
In an attempt to save the joint, VanEmmerik surrounded it in sandbags, concrete and rocks, although he was quickly cited for “unauthorised erosion control measures.”
In 2022, VanEmmerik had been fined $15,000 a day until he removed a homemade concrete barrier and, last year, he was fined seventy-seven gees after another attempt at stopping the mighty North Shore swells from eating up his pretty house.
“Private landowners take a risk when they allow structures to be so close to the shoreline,” said Deputy Attorney General Danica Swenson. “The people of Hawaii are now confronted with the consequences of property owners’ failures to take heed of the ocean’s warning signs of erosion.”
Locals ain’t real happy, as you might imagine to share the beach with the detritus of a collapsing house.
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what exactly did he want the state to do? part the seas while he pushed his house back? build a massive breakwall for him?
fucking hell man.
You know da rulez
Hawaiian waters basically saying. HAOLES GO HOME
No tag this year. Gonna accompany some new friends on an elk hunt anyways, with just my sidearm (for bear), so I can pick up some lessons on approaches to terrain and such when hunting elk.
Never turn down a walk in the woods.
Why were the houses allowed to be built there in the first place? To prove a point in the future?
Anywho, houses falling like dominos on the outer banks…. Insurance cuts homeowners a check and they move on.
Those houses were falling into the sea 25 years ago
a 31 year old from kailua with more money than sense gets what he deserves
Fred p…. first of the over paid under performing generation of pro surfers ,kind of a wanker too
1st dune problems, meh
noone wants to hear about your silly real estate articles… eat shit DR
Also don’t buy/build houses in known flood plains or in areas prone to wildfires. Pretty basic common sense.
I’m no endosociomologist but I think that this shouldn’t just be another BG article that we all scroll by. I think that DR is the man to tackle this issue and to make sure that it never happens again …….or that it happens every large swell, depending on what your point of view is.
Shout out to that architectural professor who listed Asheville, North Carolina as a top 20 destination to move to to avoid the effects of a changing climate.
You do know there’s considerably more registered Democrats in Asheville than there are Republicans.
did you know there is no such thing as sea level rise , it’s actually the continents are sinking…..herr Don’s appraisal of the situation…he even thinks there will be more sea front available because of sea level rose?
Did you know the Dead Sea used to be connected to the “Alive” Seas?
ah so the sea is dead ,and wants to be alive??
Absolutely. Once upon a time Palestinians lived underwater in the Mediterranean Sea. They hated Jews a lot then too, but getting the word out proved troublesome with sound waves in liquid immersion transferring to air waves. They tried to work out the kinks, but the Muhammad and the Quran and all that gobblygook.
hmm so the Palestinians were under sea dwellers…Disguised as ?
So the sea’s were alive with Palestinians , now that’s an interesting theory…..did the Pally’s eat pets also?
Herr Don 😂
The? Mmmmm. Teh? Mmmmm.
Hold myyyyu beeeeiiirrrrr.
Het.
Xox
derek on the piss again talking pure shit…
I would love watching the ocean eat rich people’s stuff. We could chart groups to observe this like a morbid socio economic whale watching tour.
I’m not mathemedemiologist, but I wonder what the investment numbers would be on land bought $$ – land lost to ocean $$ vs overall $$ resale… oh wait, this isn’t east coast aus.
Bra! Never f%#king Quit! Aloha!
everybody is rich except me
I’m no Biblical scholar… but I’m preeeeeety sure that even that book of whacky Bronze Age fairy stories had some sound technical advice regarding the lack of firmament when building a house on sand.
Anybody with some foresight knows that those houses should not be there, and only time will prove it. Time to sell and move in land. What is the alternative? Create sea walls thst will end up failing too and fu$k up the beaches and waves? Time to realize that we lost on this ideology.
Pretty easy to see what the council is trying to do. Hang em out to dry because if they start paying for a little bit of erosion now, it will send them broke later.
Hope he sees their asses and wins. But city hall will try to fuck him over.
I hope he sees their asses and wins too!!! Ohlalalalalala
Xoz